Another season of back-patting and self-adulation has come and gone, with the head honcho, Mr Oscar, ending things off as usual earlier this week.
|||LARA DE MATOS
TONIGHT EDITOR
Another season of back-patting and self-adulation has come and gone, with the head honcho, Mr Oscar, ending things off as usual earlier this week.
The 88th Academy Awards had many holding their breath – or flaring at the nostrils – as to just how, what’s meant to be the most auspicious event in showbiz would play out, in the wake of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy.
Chris Rock had the unenviable task of playing Devil’s Advocate in his capacity as the (black) host, a feat which most agree he managed to pull off smoothly, with even-handed punches launched at those on both sides of the debate.
The ceremony itself, however, rather belaboured the point (often to the extent of tokenism), as did a number of the celebrities themselves – whether presenting, receiving or simply performing – on the main issue at hand, or on others that were drawn in, like sexual abuse and environmentalism.
We get it. There are socio-political concerns that permeate our everyday world, which need to be addressed. But just how and why did the Oscars – the one, singular evening of an entire annual calendar primarily intended to celebrate creativity and talent – become that platform?
If anything, it’s a notion that’s completely contrary to the ethos of the man who founded the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences (Ampas) – the very organisation which, in turn, went onto establish the Oscars.
Born during the turbulent times of Imperial Russia, Louis B. Mayer was all of 3 when his father decided to flee the pre-Bolshevik-cum-Communist sentiments bubbling up from the ranks of the working class.
But, life on the Canadian side of the equator proved equally dismal and so it was that, aged just 12, he was forced to forget his formal education and join the world of gainful employment.
Fast-forward a few years and vaudeville theatre, the favourite form of live entertainment from the 1880s through to the early 1930s, proved to be his meal ticket. In time, he would pack up his suitcase along with his showgirls and head west to the (then) still largely industrial, dusty streets of Los Angeles, where he set his sights on the burgeoning motion picture business.
A couple of deals here, some hundred-plus film developments there and a partnership with entertainment entrepreneur, Marcus Loew later, MGM Studios was born.
Perhaps it was his grim childhood that informed Mayer’s view that “movies should not be a reflection of life, but an entertaining escape from it”. Likewise, he doggedly expected his actors to present an idealised image of men and women, whether on or off set. It was a formula that worked very nicely for him and his co-founders, as proved by the stratospheric success of cinema’s subsequent so-called golden years.
But as workers’ unions began to spring up in other enterprises (such as set builders) related to show business, Mayer found himself fretting over the possibility of “the talent” deciding to get organised and adopting similar notions of health care, pension benefits or – horror of horrors – a cut of the profits.
Thus, Mayer and his clever cronies came up with the concept of their own labour organisation of sorts, one that would invite membership from all sorts of powerful people in the biz, which would simultaneously act (pardon the pun) as a publicity machine, intoning the virtues and glittery magic of Hollywood.
And hey, why not introduce awards for all that fairy dust being sprinkled about while they’re at it?
Granted, a turn in tide (and global economic fortunes) meant that Mayer’s worst fears of unionised actors, directors and writers were indeed realised, and the folk whom we plebs flock to see certainly have a lot more jurisdiction in the small pond that is Tinseltown.
But while his intentions in setting up the Ampas and the Oscars may not have been entirely honourable, in a world so fraught with hatred, horror and hardship, there’s still something to be said for the whimsical ideology that informed them.
As one of most iconic names from the realm of make-believe, Lewis Carroll, once said:
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality”.
lara.dematos@inl.co.za
@Lara_de_Matos